Are these three rules still in effect?

[benoit489]

1st offense is a verbal warning for all players except in extreme cases of admin abuse or player abuse.

2nd offense results in being kicked from the server. If the player comes back in the room he should be warned again and told why he was kicked and told if he does it again he will be banned. Any player kicked or banned may apply on the forums to be reinstated. They should explain what happened and the leaders will vote on reinstatement.

3rd offense is a ban from the server. Once banned the only way to be able to play on the BFM server would be reinstatement by posting on the forums. Then as stated above the Leaders will vote on reinstatement. We dont want to ban anyone unless it's just the last resort and we have no other choice.

Racing in the servers has become a chore over the past month. What's most bothersome is a recent upswing in the BFM's hesitance to ban a problematic player... and I don't mean problematic as in the person makes a mistake every once in a while, I mean that they make it their mission to ignore the rules to the best of their ability. Too often has a BFM been called into a server about a disrupting player only to issue 4 or 5 warnings (neglecting those rules I posted above) and then shortly after leaving without the player in question being kicked or banned.

I also find it troubling that BFMs seem to not trust anyone unless they have a BFM tag.  I cannot count how many times I have seen a frequent player(someone who has been going on the servers for at least a year) complain about somebody breaking the rules in some way only to get the response "I have to see it". That's just mind-boggling to me. You can't see everything, you aren't everywhere.  Trust the people that come to your servers. Do you understand how much of a snub it is when you don't take our word for it?

These sentiments are not just my own. I've seen plenty of players expressing these same thoughts on the servers, with or without BFM present, and it seems the issue just gets swept under the rug.

[BFM_Kiwi]

We will give a rule breaker several warnings before kicking them from the server.  Upon returning, we will give them additional warnings before the second kick.  

Other clans may deal more strictly with rule breakers, but we feel someone has to provide an environment where people can learn to race without being indiscriminantly kicked without understanding why.  

Of course that patience is often abused by people intent on causing trouble.  Our admins do our best to deal with those types of guests, and we understand it can be very frustrating.   There are guests that break rules night after night.  We will catch on, and we will start giving them a shorter leash.  Sometime we are probably too lenient I'm sure.  But better to do that than be overbearing and drive people away.

As for taking the word of guests, we have a blanket policy that we do not take the word of anyone in the server other than other big tag admins.  Many times even seasoned racers get things wrong.  So do admins, but at least we have only ourselves to blame.   Other racing clans have slightly different rules as well.   And even a long time racer might have a grudge against someone, for all we know, and we don't want to be falsely accusing anyone on the word of someone who may or may not know our rules and be applying them in an unbiased way.

So in general we give people quite a bit of leeway and give them a chance to catch on to race and follow the rules.  If we don't do this, and other clans don't either, we won't attract new players and Halo race would die a quick death I'm afraid.  We need to encourage everyone we an if we want to perpetuate this game type.   At the same time, we don't want problem players in all the servers driving the guests away who want to race.  So we have to find a balance.  It's not easy.

[BFM_JANE]

Because we do have to see it, if you see someone breaking a rule, let us know who they are and, more importantly, where they are. "Where" is all we really need, "who" will get that person's attention though.

By calling them out like that, the problem player will either stop what they were doing and move on, or continue and get caught. Either way, problem solved.

Things like "nice camp" or even "New001, stop camping" won't really help much. "New001 is camping" is all right, but we have to drive around looking for him. Of course, New001 is always camping, so we likely would have found him first anyway, but hopefully you get the idea. 

Keep in mind we don't expect you to be our "extra eyes" in the servers, but we will check a location for rule breakage if you point it out.

[BFM_Elvis]

Benoit, I do understand your frustration about us not taking a guest word. Your not asking just any guest I don't think. You are saying long time good racers word. Well that cant work either. Lets just say for argument sake your name is New001. We see someone named Benoit who we know is a great racer join. He says new is camping. Well you are new001 and know this Benoit guy is lying. But yet we know Benoit is a great racer so he cant be lying. Well sadly in this case as many times would happen, someone has stolen your indentity in our servers. So it really isn't the Benoit we thought it was. So now we just kicked the New001 guy because some impostor we thought was a great racer just asked us to. Just think how much this would happen. The rule breakers would catch on soon enough and see whose word we take and whose we don't. They would then act as if they are you or other great racers to cause havoc in the servers.

Trust me, we really wish we could just take the word of long time racers. You and many others just want to race and have fun. We do try our best to pay attention to what is going on in the servers. We try hard to find the rule breakers. I just ask that you be patient. I will bring this up to our training staff so they make sure they go over this with each new recruit. They should take action when action is needed. We also ask BFMs not to leave a messy server unless they just have no choice. They would normally find someone else on vent to take their spot if they have to go. This very thing happened to me the other day. I can also tell you I will check up on this by playing undercover too. I will be making sure the BFM is calling in help when needed if help is available and if they are taking action when necessary. You have my promise I will do this more often to make sure we don't have a problem in this area or fix a problem if we do indeed have one. I hope that helps some. Please just trust that we want all servers to race and follow the rules and have no intentional rule breakers in them. We give up our time racing for great guest like yourself. So please be understanding and give the admin a little time to find out the problem.